A night at the Moulin Rouge (aka breasts, breasts and more breasts)

Before we left on our vacation I had booked tickets to go see the show at the Moulin Rouge for €145 each (about US$230 and AUD$245) which included the show and a meal.

The Moulin Rouge is located in Pigalle, which is a red-light district in France and is full of sex shops, table top dancing bars and porn cinemas. As such the area is exceptionally seedy.

On the reservation email, it said that we needed to be there at 6:45pm and were running late. It turns out there was no need to rush as when arrived there, there was a long queue of people waiting to get in. Once inside we were directed towards to a cloak room where we were effectively forced to check in our jackets at the cost of €2 per jacket (which was pretty rich given that we had forked out a total of €290 for the tickets). Little did we know that this was just the start of the high prices charged at the Moulin Rouge. Next we were offered a program at €8, which wasn’t really too badly priced but once again given the cost of the tickets should have been included for free. Funniest bit of the program was one photo spread where it looks it had the old cast and they stuck new heads for the current cast!

We were then taken to our table which was right in front of the stage and given a bottle of Champagne Jacquart Brut Mosaique to share. This champagne can be bought for about USD$40. Our meal then started to arrive. The meal I would say was exceptionally average at best especially given the price. The first course was a bit of chicken pate with some unknown pressed meat around it with a bread crust on the outside (Encrusted Poultry Pâté, Parslied Gelée). The second course was some veal in a creamy white sauce with bacon and some rice (Traditional Veal “Blanquette”, Rice Pilaw). I was a bit annoyed that it had bacon especially given I had asked the waiter what the dish was and he hadn’t mentioned the bacon. Luckily it was just on the top so it could be removed. The dessert I had was the Bourbon” Mille-Feuille, which was pretty much just a vanilla slice.

To give another example of the price gouging at the Moulin Rouge, the couple next us wanted to buy a bottle of wine and were told that it would cost €25 for a half a bottle (roughly USD$40 or AUD$42) and €50 for a full bottle (double the amounts for the half bottle :P). This is without a wine list so the wine could be anything (and given the champagne cost I’m sure the wine wasn’t much better value or quality).

Once the meal finished, the show started (at roughly around 9pm) and lasted for about 2 hours. During the show we saw the following:

A lot of girly men (I wouldn’t really say it’s their fault but the choreographers as all their dances conveyed that vibe)

Woman in extravagent outfits

Woman in outfits which showed off their breasts (hence the name of the posting as you get to see a lot of them)

A guy who did golf ball tricks who was very funny and could do some quite incredible things such as juggle balls in his mouth.

A male-female pair who did gymnastic tricks such as him locking his feet around a chair, lifting up his partner with his hands only while she does a handstand, then lowering himself over the back of the chair by bending his legs then getting back again all without dropping his partner. Exceptionally impressive and I wish I had strength like that!

Once the show finished, we were encouraged to leave quickly as there is an 11pm show and they needed to get everyone out so they could seat all the new people.

Overall, I’d say the Moulin Rouge was interesting but the meal and show definitely did not justify the prices of either the tickets or any extras during the show.

Once the show finished , we headed back to the hotel and packed until about 1am before heading to bed as we were heading off to Melbourne that morning.

One Response to “A night at the Moulin Rouge (aka breasts, breasts and more breasts)”

leon wardsaid

My wife and I saw the show the evening of April 20, 2010, just a week ago.
We did not opt for wine, meal nor the program. If you want to avoid being gouged, just keep it simple and pay only for the show which does include a half bottle of wine. Since we don’t drink, we had mineral water. Cost was Euro 102 per ticket which translated to about US$ 275 for the two of us. The show was very good. The ventriloquist was incredilbly good.